According to the U.S. Department of Transportation cell phone distractions cause some 600,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, and 3,000 deaths. This works out to more than 1,643 crashes, 904 injuries, and 8 deaths each day. by Russell W. Dickson
(libertarian)
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
By Russell W. Dickson
We have all been tempted, often while sitting behind the wheel in traffic. We hear that familiar beep of a text-message alert. Maybe your boss wants to go over yesterday's meeting, or a friend wants to set up a place to meet for drinks. Traffic is backed up for miles or so it seems. You think to yourself it would take only a minute to respond with your thumbs, so you do. What's the harm, you think? And then it happens ... the person in front of you stops more abruptly than you expected and you crash into them. You run your fingers through your hair, and take a deep breath as the reality of the situation sets in. You think to yourself, "How could I be so unlucky." Whether you realize it or not you have been lucky. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation http://www.dot.gov/ cell phone distractions cause some 600,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, and 3,000 deaths. This works out to more than 1,643 crashes, 904 injuries, and 8 deaths each day.
As a person that frequents busy New York roads day in and out I have been witness to some death defying acts in traffic. Once I saw a women driving down the thruway while putting on eyeliner, another time I saw a guy shaving with an electric razor, and as unbelievable as it sounds one night while driving home from work I saw a guy looking at a dirty magazine as he drove. What is it about the American driving experience that lulls these people into a false sense of security behind the wheel? Do they think that the laws of physics no longer apply while they are driving?
About 4 p.m. on Sept. 15, 2009, according to the Oregonian, Antonio Cellestine, 18, was texting a girlfriend as he drove on Northeast St. Johns Road near the top of a hill. He took his eyes off the road multiple times, as many do, according to court documents.
Gordon Patterson, 50, a husband, father and popular teacher at Hudson's Bay, was riding his bike home in a bike lane that sunny afternoon.
Cellestine took his eyes of the road as he texted causing his car to drift into the bike lane, hitting Patterson from behind and throwing him into the air. Patterson died from the injuries he sustained. "I just looked up and whoa!" Cellestine later told a girlfriend in a conversation that was recorded while he was in jail. Last month, Cellestine was sentenced to five years in prison in what's believed to be Washington's first conviction of vehicular homicide while texting. In another incident reported on mydeathspace.com, a sixteen-year-old, named Kayla Preuss died of head injuries when she lost control of her car and slammed into the center median. Phone records show Preuss was texting just before the accident.
CBS/AP http://www.cbsnews.com/reports that, Bailey Goodman, 17, was killed along with four of her fellow cheerleaders when she swerved into oncoming traffic, hit a tractor-trailer and her SUV burst into flames. Only five days earlier, the five teenagers graduated from high school. Two minutes before the crash was reported, her phone was used to send a text greeting to a friend. And finally according textinganddriving.com, Ashley D. Miller, 18, veered into oncoming traffic and hit another car head-on while she was texting. She and the other driver, a 40-year-old mother of 1, were killed instantly.
We all like to think we are immune, that bad things like these will never happen to us, but the fact is that bad things do happen every day to foolish people, and none of us are immune. Texting is exploding worldwide. In 2008, more than 1 trillion text messages were sent, up from 363 billion in 2007, says CTIA, the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry http://www.ctia.org/. Psychologists with the University of Utah conducted a study using a driving simulator. Their test subjects were 20 men and 20 women ages 19 to 23. The psychologists studied their responses to various driving scenarios. The results revealed in December that the test subjects who were texting were six times more likely to crash. "Texting drivers look down at their devices for five seconds at a time on average enough time at highway speeds to cover more than a football field," according to a study, says the Driven to Distraction Task Force of Washington State http://www.nodistractions.org/. I believe Henry David Thoreau once said, "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." Is your life worth the time it takes to pull over and respond to a text message? I think so
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 8
thumbs so far
The views expressed
in this article are those of Russell W. Dickson only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Russell W. Dickson is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Bill Gee
Date: March 2, 2011 07:43:01 AM
Thanks for posting this.
I drive 45 minutes in one direction to work every day. I try to beat the "rush" in the morning by coming to work before the sun comes up, but my drive home is often terrifying. Every time someone cuts me off a little too closely, or moves into my lane without signaling, 9 out of 10 times they either have a cell phone to their ear or they're eyes are off the road as they're looking down. This happens despite the fact that New Jersey has one of the most strict cell phone and texting laws in the country!
Posted By: JCMarvin
Date: March 2, 2011 03:47:44 PM
This article is a great public service Russ. It's really true, people are just unaware of how dangerous it is. I once had an argument with a coworker, who thought it really important to answer emails from clients and the boss while driving... with me in the car. I grabbed the blackberry out of his hand and said dictate to me what is so important that you want to say at the expense of my safety and well being. I told him, I do not care what you think about it. If you are going to text and drive, do it on your own time, but not with me in the car. After working as a Traffic Reporter for 10 years, I saw way too many horrible accidents because people were not paying attention.
This is right on the money. I see more people weaving in traffic than I ever have in my life since texting became popular. I feel texting while driving is even MORE dangerous than drunken driving. At least an intoxicated person is making every effort to look at the road. I also feel (and I've seen studies backing this) that just talking on the phone is too distracting an activity while driving. The facts in the article should be included in a class before someone can even apply for a learner's permit.
